


And tintinnabulations will not cry

by Nehm



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: I'm Sorry, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-28
Updated: 2014-01-28
Packaged: 2018-01-10 08:55:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1157676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nehm/pseuds/Nehm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I told you they wouldn't hurt me, Scott," said Stiles, and so slowly, he looked up. </p>
<p>"I <i>told</i> you they wouldn't hurt me."</p>
<p>***<br/>"This isn't you, Stiles."</p>
<p>"This has been me all along."</p>
            </blockquote>





	And tintinnabulations will not cry

**Author's Note:**

> One-shot, inspired by the latest eps of Teen Wolf. If you've not watched it, you will be confused. Mind the spoilers. You don't need to know what exactly transpired in the story at all, or prior to the written out scene - just, read the aftermath.

"I told you they wouldn't hurt me, Scott," said Stiles, and so slowly, he looked up. He wore such a crooked, impossible smile, a match with those dark, blood-shot eyes.

"I _told_ you they wouldn't hurt me."

They backed off. The world, as they knew it, did not end. It might as well have.

Might as well have when they rose from behind him, and they, their uncertain, distorting edges, seemed so gentle and understanding. They rose from the ground, almost looking like the friends, or the shadows that had gained sentience, and understood, personally, privately, the importance of showing up - right here, and right now, and no other day.

They rose, dust and dusk and all pitch dark, and those already present stepped to them, stopped. Six shadowy, masked figures surrounded Stiles. His personal bodyguards.

Stiles shook. They could see it, the tremors that seemed to originate not from the physical, not grounded in the world - and not, dear god, easily helped. They could not hold him, still the shakes. They could not change the way they had found their way from his dreams. But there was, too, a sickness to his skin, that gut-wrenching, calm glow, a wrong offset to his pale disposition. Stiles watched them.

"Stiles," said Scott, or maybe warmed. He attempted a step- halted. The figures did not move. They didn't have to. It was all about Stiles, and the way he stood there, feet firmly planted, and his long, kind limbs so straight by his sides, and the figure Scott recalled as imp-sized; they had grown up together, friends. But he didn't recognize him now.

The way a damp, agonized smell rose from him, the way he watched them, and he had once looked softly tanned, only in a way that helped his cheeky grins, and kind heart. It was all gone. He stood, his breathing deep, but the labor with which it existed had the mark of beloved, welcome agony; if his lungs should be hurting now, he wanted it.

Scott shook his head. "Stiles."

The figures moved - a threat. Step aside, step.

Scott looked at Allison.

She shook her head, pocketed the phone. _Dad isn't answering._ He couldn't ignore the way tears, at her eyes, lusted for freedom. 

Lydia, on the ground, woke up. Knocked out for several minutes. She was just in time to wear her eyes out - from this keen, real sight. Isaac was by her side. Helped her stand up. Their breaths were like the dots on a canvas, strokes of a natural scenery, no wrong, no unlawful present. And their always held-back, always repressed, and always toned down (for the audience) gasps, were a susurrus that confused the senses; it seemed so real, so unreal, so much like a vivid, weird dream, one Scott would wake up from, and then cherish as a dark, frightening secret, never to trouble his friend, never to add to his fears. But Derek's loft had tall, majestic ceiling, the walls were thin, and it was a grave where Boyd had perished, and Stiles was now looking down, with the gasps half breathing, like he needed manufacture the need to breathe, like he was losing, with every second, the care to do it; what did air matter, when your world was darkness?

"I'm really sorry, Scott," began Stiles, his voice all wrong; it was a mahogany tone, dirt, and ground made sentient in a person, quaking in the terms seemingly normal, like the way his voice twitched with paranoia and regret, like the way it stood so low, between whispering and a tired tone, was the supposed goal. But it was not, and could not have been. "I am sorry, Scott," continued Stiles, dazed, raspy.

Scott tried a step forward - tried, managed, needed to. It wasn't even half a foot. "Stiles," he began, and slowly reached out. Stiles was fifty feet away. But the distance was of no consequence. His hand was outstretched in the exact gesture of being shaken. But the fingers crooked a bit, friendly and harmless hooks to ensure a beloved's captivity. His stomach hurt. The anxiety that had settled in his veins called for a worse monster than the wolf - worse, every degree of wrong covered for the mighty want to shout out to the world every that whispering, crying worry that _Stiles was going to be gone. ___

__Every. ____

__"Look at me, Stiles, look at me," he was saying, carefully. Lydia was on her feet, Isaac held her. Allison could have prepared her bow, arrow, or a different kind of a gun - she would be too slow. They would kill Stiles. Derek had tried; his arm was still healing, the deep gashes slowly knitting. And when he sat, breathing heavily, in the literal pool of own blood, Scott forgot him: it was only him._ _

__"Stiles... Stiles." Scott took another step forward._ _

__The figures had a certain a way they moved, illogical, like they had painful knots in the joints. Or kinks in their muscles, perhaps each and every corrupted with the pain that made their moves unnatural. But in their robotic movements Scott had observed elegance; the murderers with panache that debilitated the known. He tried not to think, tried not to focus on the wrong, distracting aspects they had not figured. And Allison's father was missing in action._ _

__Scott walked. Again, step, by, step. And he wanted to swear it was him and he was getting through, and the figures had budged and stopped because they knew him serious - not, definitely not because Stiles's fingers had, subtly, twitched... to call off an assault. It was not Stiles. _It was not him.__ _

__"Stiles... please." He paused, swallowed. Dry, dry throat did not work, brother. It tightened, sore. Eyes filled, nose would not work. Joints creaked, needed oil: needed the essence of willpower, hope. Mouth was too thin, uneven jaw too tight, clenched so. He opened the mouth- tried reason. Ruined it, all._ _

__"This isn't you, Stiles."_ _

__Stiles looked at him, a maniac of surreal calm, one whose skin paled to an ashen contour, all color ordered to withdraw. He looked, just the subtlest of smiles (not smirks, not smirks, Scott, sleep, the worries disturb without justice) on him now, and his eyes they were glassy. It was a sign, right? Stiles was there. He was just- just possessed._ _

__Stiles exhaled._ _

__"No." Something in Scott snapped. "No, no, this isn't you, this isn't- _this isn't YOU, Stiles-_ "_ _

__Forty-eight feet now._ _

__Stiles had mouthed it._ _

__"You are wrong, Scott... This. This _is ___me. This has been me all along."_ _

___And then he spoke loud and clear for everyone to hear._ _ _

___"And this is you watching the real me."_ _ _

___"Stiles-!"_ _ _

___Stiles spread his arms - not nearly enough, though. The movies, oh, they made it sound and seem so easy, like in that instance, you had the time. You hadn't._ _ _

___The arms were barely off the sides when a blade went through his heart, through and though on both sides a sharp metal drowned in blood._ _ _

___He should have turned into a puff of smoke. Should have dissolved. Dissipated into thin air, disappeared. As they did. As they did... Become one of them, cemented their fear, given them nightmares. And a hope to get him back, a goal for the next year, or a decade, however long it took. But their hopes were a sham, a creation for the children. And this was an adult's show. He didn't become smoke._ _ _

___He spat out red, hot blood._ _ _

___" _STILES!_ "_ _ _

___"Scott- Scott, Scott no, -NO- NO, it's... it's too late he is-"_ _ _

___Allison held him, Allison, her lower lip quivering so hard her voice had changed, Allison, with her arms around his waist, and it should have been Kira now (safe at home with her parents), or Stiles, looking so relieved, so relaxed when his legs began to give up, and the body sink._ _ _

___Scott leaped, was held back. His knees hit the ground, and there was, also, Derek. He, Isaac and Allison holding him back. He saw red, and he saw, only, the blood. Why did the world not shatter._ _ _

___Stiles, stabbed by one of his -... henchmen. Stiles, a blade through his heart, through the chest, so precisely stabbed that must have been a piece of said heart at the tip of the blade. Stiles, who looked at them all, and did not faint, did not fall. Stiles, he touched the side of the blade with a palm, like a child experimenting with new surfaces, objects, or a home appliance just brought home- Stiles, who looked up, a shy, attractive rivulet of blood trickling from the corner of his mouth._ _ _

___He tilted his head._ _ _

___There were fond, resigned tears in his eyes._ _ _

___"This has always been me, Scott."_ _ _

____No._ _ _ _

___And the figures took him, blocked the sight of him, and then were swallowed, mobile evil clouds sheltering their figures._ _ _

___Allison's phone rang. Scott collapsed on the ground. Today was Christmas. The ringing stopped, half a minute later._ _ _

___Its fading tintinnabulation cried into Derek's silent, graveyard loft._ _ _


End file.
